“Well, in the first place I didn’t hear her come upstairs immediately to fetch her jewels, as I almost certainly should have done. And, secondly, didn’t you notice that she carefully asked me if I knew what time she was there, before she gave a time at all? In other words, after I had let out like an idiot that I didn’t know what time she was there, she realised that she could say what time she liked, and as long as it didn’t clash with any of the known facts (such as Stanworth being out in the garden with me) it would be all right.” “Splitting hairs?” Alec murmured laconically. “Possibly; but nice, thick, easily splittable ones.” For a time they smoked in silence, each engaged with his own thoughts. Then: “Who would you say was the older, Alec,” Roger asked suddenly, “Lady Stanworth or Mrs. Shannon?” “Mrs. Shannon,” Alec replied without hesitation. “Why?” “I was just wondering. But Lady Stanworth looks older; her hair is getting quite gray. Mrs. Shannon’s is still brown.” “Yes, I know Mrs. Shannon looks the younger of the two; but I’m sure she’s not, for all that.” “Well, what age would you put Jefferson at?” “Lord, I don’t know. He might be any age. About the same as Lady Stanworth, I should imagine. What on earth are you asking all this for?” “Oh, just something that was passing through my mind. Nothing very important.” They relapsed into silence once more. Suddenly Roger slapped his knee. “By Jove!” he ejaculated. “I wonder if we dare!” “What’s up now?” “I’ve just had a brain wave. Look here, Alexander Watson, it seems to me that we’ve been tackling this little affair from the wrong end.” “How’s that?” “Why, we’ve been concentrating all our energies on working backwards from suspicious circumstances and people. What we ought to have done is to start farther back and work forwards.” “Don’t quite get you.” “Well, put it another way. The big clue to any murder must after all be supplied by the victim himself. People don’t get murdered for nothing—except by a chance burglar, of course, or a homicidal maniac; and I think we can dismiss both of those possibilities here. What I mean is, find out all you can about the victim and the information ought to give you a lead towards his murderer. You see? We’ve been neglecting that side of it altogether. What we ought to have been doing is to collect every possible scrap of information we can about old Stanworth. Find out exactly what sort of a character he had and all his activities, and then work forwards from that. Get me?” “That seems reasonable enough,” Alec said cautiously. “But how could we find out anything? It’s no good asking Jefferson or Lady Stanworth. We should never get any information out of them.”